In a kind of a stapler for bundling to bind together a plurality of sheets of paper included in a printer, a copier or the like and subjected to a processing of printing, copying or the like, there is provided a cutter unit for cutting a tip portion of a staple leg penetrated to a back-face side of sheets in order to deal with a variation in a number of sheets of paper. By the cutter unit, thin sheets through thick sheets can be bound by a stable shape by making a length of the staple leg projected from the sheets constant. The cutter unit is constituted by a fixed cutter and a movable cutter made to be moved relative to the fixed cutter. According to the staple leg advanced to between the two cutters by penetrating the sheets, a tip portion of the staple leg is cut such that the length of the staple leg portion of the penetrated portion from the sheets become substantially constant.
According to the stapler having such a cutter unit for cutting the tip portion of the staple leg, there is a case of posing a problem that the cut chip of the staple leg cut by the cutter unit is scattered at inside of the stapler and is caught by an operating mechanism of a drive gear, a link or the like to bring about an operation barrier, or dropped onto a circuit board to short circuit to destruct the circuit. Therefore, according to a stapler disclosed in JP-Y-03-025931, there is provided a cut chip processing apparatus for preventing a cut chip from being scattered to inside of a stapler by accumulating the cut chip of staple leg cut by the cutter unit to a predetermined portion. According to the apparatus of processing the cut chip of the staple leg, a containing vessel for containing the cut chip is inclined to be arranged at a discharge portion for discharging the cut chip of the staple leg from the cutter unit, an opening portion is formed at a lower end of the containing vessel, the opening portion is provided with a closed lid member operated by a gravitational force to close the opening portion at normal time, and the cut chip stored in the containing vessel can be discharged to outside.
However, according to a stapler included in a printer, a copier or the like, arranged along a path of carrying sheets at inside of the apparatus and binding together printed or copied sheets, there is a case in which sheets in a state of being in a horizontal or in a vertical direction or inclined by other arbitrary angle are bound together, or in order to bind together sheets at arbitrary plural portions, the stapler is operated while being rotated in a 45 degrees direction on a plane having an angle of elevation. In the staple leg cutting chip processing apparatus according to JP-y-03-025931, the containing vessel mounted to a portion of discharging the cut chip from the cutter unit is mounted on a front side of the stapler, the opening/closing lid portion for closing the opening portion formed at the lower end portion of the containing vessel is operated by the gravitational force and therefore, when, for example, the stapler is installed to direct in the vertical direction to bind together sheets substantially in a vertical state, the cut chip is not discharged to inside of the containing vessel, further, the lower end opening portion is not closed by the opening/closing unit member but is opened in being operated. Therefore, the stapler cannot be installed to direct in a number of directions.